After howling at the first full harvest moon this past Monday with a group of paddlers from Golden Dragons in the middle of the Willamette, my hunch is that we are all glad and welcoming late-September and October’s weather. True relief after a hotter-than-usual summer.

The focus Scripture that always fascinates me has to do with Jesus and salt, Mark 9:50: “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another!” Salt has an association with holy living, as it was part of the ancient grain offerings (Lev. 2:13). Salt was and is also important as a preservative and a seasoning. And it can never lose its saltiness. Salt cannot become un-salt. As a preservative, this points to the revelation that Christians are supposed to be persistent, and live the life of faith with a kind of constancy and stick-to-itiveness. As a seasoning, Christians are called to enhance the flavor of life in this world, enriching its goodness and making God’s work stand out from the so-called “normal” way of doing things and being in the world. Finally: salt makes an impact. God is using us to have an impact upon the world around us. So how are we either slowing down the moral decay of the world in which we live, or how are we enhancing the spiritual “flavor” of the world that God has created? In all ways, we are called to make a difference, for the good, in the world in which we live._____

*Regarding the t-shirts: Please pick up your t-shirt this Sunday, and bring cash or a check made out to Community of Pilgrims, in the amount of $8 for adult M, L, and XL, and youth; and $12 for adult 2XL. Thank you!

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Poem

Remembering Summer, by W. S. Merwin

Being too warm the old lady said to meIs better than being too cold I think nowIn between is the best because you never give it a thought but it goes by too fastI remember the winter how cold it gotI could never get warm wherever I wasBut I don’t remember the summer heat like thatOnly the long days the breathing of the tressThe evenings with the hens still talking in the laneAnd the light getting longer in the valleyThe sound of a bell from down there somewhereI can sit here now still listening to it._____